Recurring Phenomenon: The Cosmic Disaster

Besides the most evident cosmic catastrophes ca. 2200 BC and 2345 BC there are other events during the Holocene that are so widely global and difficult to explain by only the Earth's own mechanisms that a cosmic explanation must evidently be taken into account.

The first so-called "Dark Age", meaning a period from which little is known despite much information before and after that period, occurred about 3100 BC to 3000 BC. For example in Mesopotamia this period is called Jemdet Nasr. About 3100 BC there was suddenly a change to more primitive ages compared to the preceding Uruk period. For example the numerical token system dwindled. 3000 BC however there was a sudden recovery. This is called the Early Dynasty, which can be described as the first known culture, that began to have some kind of a centralized system. And the tokens were not only numerated again, the basis for writing was born.

What happened 3100 BC, maybe right in 3114 BC? There is not any great crater on the continental areas, but 2/3 of the Earth's area is covered by water, and flood they speak of. In fact there are two small craters from about this time, but what seems more probable, is a huge meteorite swarm that both caused much damage on land, brought up tsunamis and blanketed with dust the atmosphere. It may have been a break-up of a great comet in the inner parts of the solar system. People were panic-stricken. The beginnings of civilizations, however, got despite of the immediate damage, a first great rise, after about a hundred years had gone. There was a great boomtime. that eventually led to the rise of the first great civilizations in the beginning of the third millennium BC.

What evidence is there then that something immemorable happened around 3100 BC than the Mayan year zero in 3114 BC? Dick Meehan has gathered some happenings around this time: - Newgrange construction. - Flood in paleoclimatic data. - Stonehenge number one (the astronomical one, later versions are religious ones) - The unification of Egypt as if a cooperation would be needed. - Methane peak (fires). - Cold time according to bristlecone pines. - The coastal menhirs in Brittany. Although anyone of these in itself would not be of any great concern, the timing of them in a frame of only 100 years, is the thing that makes us suspect that something unusual was going on. And actually beginning, the next 1000 years or so were very restless time globally.

Aftermath of this may be the 2807 BC ocean impact described by Bruce Masse in Peiser et al.: Natural Catastrophes (Oxford, 1998). If this is the great Flood Comet, as Masse seems to indicate, this explains why the Sumerian story of Flood, on which basis the Genesis Noachian Flood story is built, is combined with the story of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh reigned in the 27th century, 300-450 years before the two great cataclysms in late third millennium BC. Or was the comet or comets swarming and breaking up the whole period of 3114 BC to 2807 BC with diminishing frequency and damage ending temporarily in a great splash in the Atlantic?

The second Dark Age lasted from 2200 BC to 1900 BC. A third Dark Age seems to have followed the "tree ring event" (where the tree rings were very narrow) of 1159 BC (Baillie, A Slice through time). The Mycenean culture may be one of its victims.

Also, the end of Younger Dryas and with it the latest ice age 9700 BC seems to me too sudden and too dramatic a change to happen in an instant, as the Greenland ice cores seem to show, if we seek only terrestrial explanations. What the sudden change indicates is a mystery, but a rise by 15 degrees C in at most some decades, a rise that has remained permanent within some degrees during the last 11,700 years, indicates a catastrophe literally of cosmic dimensions.

The fourth Dark Age is Anno Domini. The beginning year is 536. That year there was reduced growth of trees in America. In China stars were not seen and a famine began. In Ireland there was "a failure of bread" for many years. Dry fog hovered globally. Mediterranean famine began 537 when the storages for food had been eated empty. The famine lasted at least two years. Socalled Justinian plague began 542. At this time the splendid but badly known culture of Moche in Peru came to a sudden end. May this 536 event also have given the Roman empire its last fatal blow? The Justinian's desperate offensive to restore the Roman empire which he launched 533 was doomed already in 537 when the Franks seized Provence.

Nile froze in 829 AD. Mayan from all lowlands disappeared in the first part of the ninth century. Vikings had easy access to almost uninhabited Western Europe islands and coast in ninth century? Were there again cosmic forces at work? Was there a tsunami in North Atlantic?

So have cosmic forces let down Sumer, the most brilliant phase of Egypt, Indus with Mohenjo-Daro and Harappan, Babylon, Shang dynasty in China, Moche culture in Peru and I dare to ask, did they put a final end to the disintegration of Roman empire that had been going on already for 200 years? Not to speak of the Flyland (Escape Country) or Altland (Oldland) or Atland in 2194 BC when the survivors escaped to Crete and established there the Minoan culture.

The Mayan Calendar

Remains of Palenque

The Mayans/Olmecs put their 0.0.0.0.0 date at Gregorian time 3114 BC. Stonehenge I (the original astronomical one) was built near 3100 BC, as was Newgrange. The civilization of Sumer had a downfall around 3100-3000 BC, but both Sumer and Egypt then blossomed into an unprecedented and subsequently never exceeded level. Was this the paradise period in Sumer? At least the period from 3000 BC to 2350 BC seems to have been much wetter in Mesopotamia, and the Nile more generous, than the extremely dry period beginning in 2200 BC.

A Possible Source for the 3100 BC Event

Continuing with selections from "Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets" by Duncan Steel

"The outrageous suggestion that I am going to make is that the

Taurid Complex was producing phenomenal meteor storms between 4,500

and 5,000 years ago, accompanied by multiple Tunguska-class

atmospheric detonations, and that Stonehenge I was designed to allow

the (awestruck, terrified) culture of southern England to make

observations of the Phenomena and to perhaps predict their

recurrence. Peter Lancaster Brown, in his book on megalithic sites,

wrote that "Eclipses, comets and meteorites were astronomical

phenomena widely observed by the ancients. But probably only

eclipses were predictable." (Steel means to imply that Stonehenge I was

needed to make observations because meteorite falls are far more unpredictable, but

and at the same time may be long-lasting and recurring. - TN.)

Steel continues this theme in Peiser et al.: Natural Catastrophes (Oxford, 1998) by commenting that he sees no connection between the original Stonehenge I (built in 3100 BC) and the thousand year later Stonehenge II and Stonehenge III except the place. The original one was a scientific observatory, not for Sun, or Moon, or eclipses, but for watching dangerous meteorites, asteroids and comets. The later Stonehenges with their stones (the image of Stonehenge that we have of it today), was more that of a ritual and sanctuary than for any practical/scientific purpose. Of course it could be used for some trivial astronomical calculations (solstices, eclipses), but its original purpose was hardly known for the later builders. The world's first scientific astronomical observatory changed to a ritual place, because it was not anymore needed for its original purpose when the Taurids did not at that moment bother mankind, in fact the Taurids lived only in legends. Today the legends are coming part of a serious scientific study. What a change in paradigm!

Rogue Asteroids: "Comet Encke is associated with the Taurid Complex. If we follow

the orbit of P/Encke backward, we find that it intersected that of

the Earth around 1,800 and 5,000 years ago (ascending) and 2,100 and

4,700 years ago (descending)."

The Taurid complex is a comet/meteor swarm complex, whose main body

is the periodic comet Encke with an unknown number of meteoroid

swarms plus possibly some small body pieces. When the Taurid complex intersected Earth 5000 years ago, maybe around 3100 BC, it may have caused a 100 year long period of tunguskans and mini-tunguskans.

Clube and Napier have already in their legendary "The Cosmic Winter" (Oxford (UK), Cambridge (US), 1990) told the Taurid story:

"It seems clear that we are looking at debris from the breakup of an extremely large object. The disintegration, or sequence of disintegrations, must have taken place within the past twenty or thirty thousand years as otherwise the asteroids would have spread around the inner planetary system and be no longer recognizable as a stream.

"The second discovery, due mainly to the Czechoslovakian astronomer Stohl, is that enveloping the Taurids, Comet Encke and these particular asteroids is a broad tube of meteoric debris. ... The Stohl stream is apparently double due probably to an exceptional fragmentation... The mass of the meteoric material within the Stohl stream is 10 or 20 billion tonnes. ... Adding in the mass of gas and very fine dust ... we find that the original body must have been about 100 kilometres across. ... Backtracking the orbits of Encke and Oljato, we find that 9500 years ago their orbits were nearly identical. It is possible there was a major disintegration of the prime body then, with much debris created of which Comet Encke and Oljato are the largest known bodies ... Oljato itself is in an orbit which brought it virtually into the Earth's orbital plane for some centuries around 3000-3500 BC."

Was it Oljato's tail that swarmed Earth around 3100 BC? Did it have a partner or is Swift-Tuttle a part of a parent body of both or did the parent body disintgrate into three parts: Oljate, Swift-Tuttle and a third part that rained on Earth 13 August 3114 BC, the Mayan day zero?

Darwin was not wrong while saying that evolution is the survival of the fittest, but today we must add that evolution is the survival of the fittest of the luckiest.

Did you say Saturn?? Need to look up the Saturnists at http://www.kronia.com/ and other places. Have fun! Be prepared to be called a kook, though. Personally, I think Immanuel Velikovsky was real close to the truth of the matter of ancient mythology...

Comets are non-sentient and have no will for good or evil. There is probably no such thing as "luck".

The real question is how God balances His foreknowledge and creative hand against the free will of each human being in such a manner that disasters work to God's will and to the good of his children even as they bring temporary grief to his own and damnation to those who have rebelled. God, in His wisdom and power, is indeed awesome in the truest sense of the word.

Reading about these world-wide catastrophes, can't help but wonder if they're not recounted biblically in the 7 year famine during Joseph's rise to power in Egypt, and the famine that occurred during the time of Elijah.

the Sumerian story of Flood, on which basis the Genesis Noachian Flood story is built

I get really tired of the claim that the Israelites stole these stories from other cultures. I have a theory about why all these similar stories exist--because the event really happened.

Before writing occurred, history was handed down as oral tradition. So, in the telling of the tale, minor changes would occur over time much like that game where a group of poeple start a saying at one end of a line and by the time it gets to the last person it no longer resembles the original statement.

When did the Mediterranean Sea break through the Bosporus Straits to fill the Black Sea? The mass migration caused by that would surely have wreaked havoc throughout Europe. And even earlier question is when did the Mediterranean break through the land bridge from Gibraltar to North Africa? That was an even bigger upheaval to the people living in the low-lying, fertile, and warm area that is now the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

29
posted on 02/03/2004 7:33:30 PM PST
by FreedomCalls
(It's the "Statue of Liberty," not the "Statue of Security.")

If this seems a long time ago, then remember that in 1908 an impact equivalent to a ten-megaton explosion left a 1.2km crater in Tunguska (Siberia), and that events of this magnitude probably occur with a frequency of between once a century and once a millennium. Worth searching for in the tree-rings. Mike Baillie is a leading dendrocatastrophist who believes he had found them. There are certainly some dramatic and widespread anomalies in tree-ring thicknesses, though many may be associated with volcanic eruptions rather than impacts. Sadly, the hard evidence does not yet make a story. Undeterred, Baillie recruits an amazing mixture of historical records for various kinds of unusual phenomena and their associated mythologies, in a way which goes far beyond any credibility as serious science... but a serious idea still awaits investigation.

I think the Egyptian myth starts with some overgod Amun who mastur****s and creates a God and Goddess -- the God of air and the Goddess of moisture. These two unite and create two more gods -- of earth and of sky. The earth and Sky bro and sis get together and are interrupted by their dad, the God of air but they manage to give birth to Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephtyhys who give birth to all the lower gods.

This myth was then taken up by the Minoans and then the Greeks who turned the Gods before Osiris to Kronos and the Titans.

I don't think the Indus or Yello river valley civilisations worshipped Saturn.

that E is stupid. (and I guess you agree with me, but I've just got to rant about it), What does before the Common Era MEAN??? IF you take out the fact that Christ was born around 0 BC-AD, what other great events happened +/- 5 years around the year 0? Augustus had been Emperor since 27 BC, the Guptas were rulers in India,the Qin in China. Common Era???? huh??? Daft.

Yeah, I think it is stupid that is why I was making fun of it. BCE/CE is just another way for the anti-Christian crowd to try and remove anything and everything to do with God/Christ from the world. Well, I'm one historian who will continue to say BC/AD regardless of what the PC crowd wants.

Thanks Val! I wandered around a bit in some of the crosslinked topics and drifted out to see if the originals were still online, had a good time. I have some of them already filed around the hard drive. For my own convenience, I'm putting all the culled links here:

I have waited a LONG time for this disk! Saw the "Restless Earth" collection at Best Buy a couple of days ago, and finally got a chance to look for the single title on DVD. I'm listing the book also, which I have, because A) it's really good, B) it didn't show up in the search just now, C) it's related since Eugene Shoemaker is the "star" of this video, and D) Levy included a nice discussion of Velikovsky, a fact I noted in my too-short Amazon review.

"Yeah, I think it is stupid that is why I was making fun of it. BCE/CE is just another way for the anti-Christian crowd to try and remove anything and everything to do with God/Christ from the world. Well, I'm one historian who will continue to say BC/AD regardless of what the PC crowd wants."

Yup, I've already crossed that bridge...I've spent a life time with it, I'm not changing now.

Emma Rigby, Melissa Symonds and Derek Ward-Thompson review the evidence for the possibility that a comet may have impacted the Earth in historical times, and discuss the size of the putative comet.

Abstract

A global climatic downturn has previously been observed in tree-ring data associated with the years AD 536545. We review the evidence for the explanation of this event which involves a comet fragment impacting the Earth and exploding in the upper atmosphere. The explosion would create a plume, such as was seen during the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. The resulting debris deposited by the plume on to the top of the atmosphere would increase the opacity and lower the temperature. We calculate the size of the comet required, and find that a relatively small fragment of only about half a kilometre in diameter could be consistent with the data. We conclude that plume formation is a by-product of small comet impacts that must be added to the list of significant global hazards posed by near-Earth objects.

The likelihood of the observations of an amateur being taken seriously by the academic community are inversely proportional to the significance of those observations. So that a really big idea that changes things has about as much chance of being heard as a mouse breaking wind in a hurricane.

But the causes of the Mega-faunal extinctions of the Younger Dryas need not be such a mystery. The Younger Dryas impact events sterilized half the continent, compromised the food chain of the other half, and the rest of the northern hemisphere as well. The species that survived were the adaptable ones. And the ones that didn’t need so much to eat.

The blast effected materials of the event are clear, and obvious, in high res satellite images. But the academic community is in denial. Because those blast effected materials fly in the face of almost all of the untested assumptions of standard, gradualist landform theory. And they are destined to change almost all of standard impact science as well. There is nothing in it for the creation myths though. Because the true story the actual motions of those blast effected materials tells makes the most frightening biblical disaster, or catastrophe, sound like a children’s fairy tale by comparison.

The truth is that our planet is orbiting in the same shooting gallery as the rest of the planets. And our atmosphere is about as much protection as a silk nighty in a firefight. The most violent natural disaster in 65 million years was only a few thousand years ago. And except for a few prospectors looking for money rocks its blast effected materials are almost completely unstudied.

I never thought such skills would ever have a civilian application. But those in this world who have a handle on doing blast analysis, and bomb damage assessment from aerial surveillance photos will take to this like a duck takes to water. Because the motions, and fluid mechanics of the actual blast effected materials of the YD impacts are as easy to read as following spilled paint back to the can. http://sites.google.com/site/dragonstormproject/Home

Because the motions, and fluid mechanics of the actual blast effected materials of the YD impacts are as easy to read as following spilled paint back to the can. http://sites.google.com/site/dragonstormproject/Home
...........
Some of the pictures looked right. The big over head of west texas and norther mexico shows some black burnt places. I think people have always thought these black burnt places were volcanic in origin. You’re saying these were all extra terrestrial in origin and relatively recent.

There were a couple close ups of burnt black mountains with the splash zones around them that made your point pretty well.

There were other pictures that my untrained eye didn’t recognize as being impact areas. These were areas that didn’t have the black burnt appearance but rather some vague change of white to grey brown.

Were these older splash zones? well whatever....— even if I knew that — these flat landed whiter places don’t do a good job of making the case for the splash zones.

it would be surprising if these kinds of splash zones only started happening within the last 10-20 thousand years. if they are splash zones it would make more sense that they should be characteristic of earth impacts from the beginning. if that’s the case then how did animals get big? unless of course we’re in a period characteristic of the K-T boundary people.

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